1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an improvement in hand-written character entry apparatus.
2. Description of the related Art
Hitherto, various types of hand-written character entry apparatuses have been known which recognize hand-written characters input through a tablet input devices or the like and display standard character patterns corresponding to the result of the recognition, while encoding the characters for the purpose of storage or transfer to another device.
Difficulty is encountered in processing of Japanese words due to presence of a plurality of modes of characters such as "Kanji", "Hiragana", "Katakana", "alphabet" and "numerals". There are some characters which are very similar in shape to each other but are of different modes of character. For instance, a hiragana character "" and a katakana character "" can hardly be discriminated from each other. This applies also to the case of discrimination between a hiragana character "" and a katakana character "".
In order to correctly recognize such characters on the known hand-written character entry apparatus, a method has been proposed and used in which the hand-written characters are input after designation or appointment of a specific character mode. When such a method is used, a problem is encountered in that recognition of hand-written character is failed despite repetition of the entry operation, due to, for example, habit or tendency of character form peculiar to individual operator.
Another known method for obtaining correct recognition result is to extract and display, as candidate character, all the characters having configurations similar to that of the entered hand-written character, so that the operator can select the correct character from among those on display. To enable the selection of the correct character from among the displayed candidate characters by means of a tablet input device as is the case of hand-write entry of character, a menu area is provided on a specific area of the display for the purpose of displaying candidate characters, and the correct character is picked up as the operator appoints the position of the correct character by means of an appointing device, i.e., a tablet input device.
Thus, the known hand-written character entry apparatuses suffer from disadvantages in that the operator has to turn eyes from the position where the recognition result is displayed to the menu area each time the candidate characters are shown for selection, and in that the operator is obliged to move the appointing device such as tablet input device from the hand-write entry position to a position corresponding to the menu area. Consequently,entry of hand-written characters is quite laborious and troublesome.
In view of the above-described problems encountered with the known arts, an object of the present invention is to provide a hand-written character entry apparatus which can provide exact recognition result without requiring the operator to frequently turn eyes and frequent movement of the position of the appointing device such as a tablet input device.
To this end, according to the basic form of the present invention, there is provided a hand-written character entry apparatus of the type having an input device for inputting hand-written characters and a display device, wherein hand-written character pattern inputted by the input device is recognized and a plurality of candidate characters having configurations similar to that of the recognized character pattern are extracted and standard character patterns corresponding to the candidate characters are displayed for selection on the display device, the hand-written character entry apparatus comprising: means for providing, at a position in the display device corresponding to the position where the hand-written character is input by the input device, an input character display area for displaying a first candidate character exhibiting the highest degree of similarity among the candidate characters; means for providing, at a position in the display device adjacent to the input character display area, a candidate character display area for displaying the plurality of candidate characters including or excluding the first candidate character; means for detecting that a signal appointing any portion of the candidate character display area has been input through the input device; and means for replacing the first candidate character with the candidate character displayed at the portion of the candidate character display area appointed by the input device.
In a preferred form of the invention, a plurality of the input character display areas are provided and the candidate character display area is provided for each of the input character display area.
In this form of the invention, the arrangement may be such that a candidate character display area associated with one of the input character display area is displayed in a window which overlies another input character display area or areas.
Preferably, the input device and the display device are constructed as a unit with each other.
According to a different preferred form of the present invention, the hand-written character entry apparatus further includes, in addition to the features of the basis form: means for appointing, by the operation of the input device, at least two successive input character display areas from among a series of input character display areas displaying first candidate characters; means for conducting kana-kanji conversion of the batch of first candidate characters displayed in the at least two successive input character display areas appointed by the operation of the input device, so as to extract a plurality of candidate kanji characters; means for enabling a first candidate kanji character in one of the at least two successive input character display areas while enabling the plurality of candidate kanji characters in the candidate character display area including or excluding the first candidate kanji character; and means for replacing the first candidate kanji character with another candidate kanji character selected through the input device out of the candidate kanji characters displayed in the candidate character display area.
According to the basic form of the invention as described, a first candidate character obtained on the basis of the result of character recognition is displayed in an input character display area corresponding to the position where the hand-written character has been entered, and a plurality of candidate characters including or excluding the first candidate character are displayed in the candidate character display area adjacent to the above-mentioned input character display area. When a signal is input through the input device so as to appoint any portion of the candidate character display area, the first candidate character is automatically replaced with the candidate character which is displayed at the appointed portion of the candidate character display area.
When a plurality of input character display areas are provided and a candidate character display area is associated with each of the input character areas, a series of hand-written characters entered through the input device are displayed at a time to enable the user to grasp the context of a sentence and to effect change or replacement of the candidate character for each of the input character.
When the candidate character display area associated with one of the input character display area is displayed in a window overlying another input character display area, the overall display area and, hence, the area of the input device can be reduced advantageously.
When the input device and the display device are integrated in an superimposed manner, operation such as replacement of the candidate character is facilitated because the position where the character is entered and the position where the entered character id displayed coincides with each other.
According to the different preferred form of the invention stated above, it is possible to easily conduct entry of hand-written characters, as well as character;kanji conversion and replacement of candidate kanji characters.